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Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-storyb Art Deco skyscraper on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the building has a roof height of 1,250 feet (381 m), and with its antenna included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet (443.2 m) tall. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname for New York. As of 2017 the Empire State Building is the fifth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States and the 28th-tallest in the world. It is also the sixth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. When measured by pinnacle height, it is the fifth-tallest building in the United States. The site of the Empire State Building was first developed as part of John Thompson's farm in the early 18th century. In the late 1820s, it came into the possession of the prominent Astor family, with John Jacob Astor's descendants building the Waldorf–Astoria Hotel on the site in the 1890s. By the 1920s, the family sold the outdated hotel, and the site indirectly ended up under the ownership of Empire State Inc., a business venture that included businessman John J. Raskob and former New York governor Alfred E. Smith. The Empire State Building, as it was then dubbed, was originally supposed to be a standard 50-story office building. However, the original plans were revised fifteen times, with the tower ultimately being expanded to a 1,250-foot building with 86 stories and an airship mast on top. This ensured the Empire State Building would be the world's tallest building, beating out the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street, two other Manhattan skyscrapers under construction at the time that were also vying for that honor. Demolition of the Waldorf–Astoria began in October 1929, and the foundation of the Empire State Building was excavated before demolition was even complete. Construction on the building itself started on March 17, 1930, with an average construction rate of one floor per day. A well-coordinated schedule meant that the 86 stories were topped out by September 19 of the same year, with the mast completed by November 21. From that point, interior work proceeded at a quick pace, and the Empire State Building was opened on May 1, 1931, thirteen and a half months after the first steel beam was erected. Despite the publicity surrounding the building's construction, the building's owners failed to make a profit until the early 1950s. However, it has been a popular tourist attraction since opening, with around 4 million visitors to the building's 86th and 102nd floor observatories every year. The Empire State Building stood as the world's tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion until the topping out of the original World Trade Center's North Tower in Lower Manhattan in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York, until One World Trade Center reached a greater height in April 2012. The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon, having been featured in dozens of TV shows and movies since King Kong was released in 1933. A symbol of New York City, it has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and confirmed by the New York City Board of Estimate. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. In 2007, it was ranked number one on the AIA's List of America's Favorite Architecture.